How would Eckhart read the sentence "To educate is to be educated"?
Education is education. At first glance, this simple sentence appears to be completely agreeable and (self-)understandable. However, it can be given meaning in several ways. Anyone who tries to make sense of this sentence opens up a whole panorama of questions. Education means both a process and a result. Education can then be understood as a formative activity of any kind. But then the questions arise: Who forms and who is formed? Does the sentence mean that the subject and object of education are the same and that education is understood as a unity of subject, object and method? Related to this, further questions arise: What is education about and what role does 'the world' play in education? Which brings us to the question of whether education is more of an active or a passive process. In addition, who or what causes education? The question of causality becomes relevant in the 'didactic triangle', i.e. in teaching and learning contexts of teacher, learner and object, because it is a question of who is involved in the educational process and how, and in what way the result can be aimed at or brought about. These questions open up an initial horizon of necessary clarification when asking about the meaning of this simple sentence: To educate is to be educated.
The late medieval Dominican Eckhart von Hochheim is often and regularly referred to in the academic study of education in the present day. In this article, I would like to limit myself to reconstructing the Dominican master's specific perspective on education using this simple sentence as an example. In other words, to find out what philosophical means Eckhart uses to make this simple sentence comprehensible. I thus work out the framework conditions that allow Eckhart to bring bildunge, bilde, bilden, ein-, ent- and überbilden, as well as image (imago), model (exemplar) and form (forma) into a context. This set of instruments can be reconstructed as a - today little familiar - teleology and thus as a certain form of a doctrine of being (ontology).
A few biographical notes to begin with: Eckhart was probably born in Thuringia around 1260 and, according to Kurt Ruh, was a "highly gifted man with a steep career in scholarship and office". He became a Dominican and was therefore a member of the Order of Preachers, to which Albertus Magnus (1200-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) also belonged. His duties included pastoral care and philosophical and theological teaching in Paris and Cologne. He also took on leadership roles in his order.
Eckhart taught at a time that has been described as a second beginning of metaphysics (Ludger Honnefelder) due to the rediscovery of Aristotle's writings. In this context of ontological discussion, Muslim philosophers such as Averroes (1126-1198) and Avicenna (980-1037) and Jewish philosophers such as Maimonides (1135-1204) were also received. However, neo-Platonic sources, such as the Liber de Causis, were also firm points of reference for Eckhart. Eckhart's ontology and the competing ontologies of Franciscan provenance (Hispanus Gonsalvus and Duns Scotus) responded to a certain form of radical Averroism, in which God no longer intervenes directly in creation. Eckhart and his Franciscan dialogue partners admittedly took two different approaches to the doctrine of being.
Eckhart left behind a bilingual work: on the one hand, Middle High German sermons and, on the other, an unfinished Latin work (Opus tripartitum), which was conceived in three parts. He presumably died on the way to or in Avignon in 1328, where his teachings were scrutinised by the Pope and ultimately - after his death - 28 sentences were condemned. As a result of this condemnation, Eckhart's reception was severely restricted.
Education within the horizon of a holistic-teleological ontology
The Middle High German word bildunge appears only once in Eckhart's work, but belongs to the frequently used word field of bilde and bilden. bildunge already has a double meaning: on the one hand, it denotes an activity or a process and, on the other, the result of this activity. Eckhart describes such a formation process using the example of the sculptor, which can be traced back to Plotinus and is also used by Michelangelo: "We see an example when an image is taken out of the wood or the stone, whereby nothing is changed, rather only cleaned, hewn out and taken out. When all this has been brought out by the hand of the artist, the image appears and shines." (Ioh. n. 575) For Eckhart, forming comprises two kinds of moulding processes: Firstly, the moulding of matter into a form, whereby it is a matter that has already been formed but can still be further shaped. Secondly, such an artist also moulds a concept in his mind according to an (external) model, after which he then creates a statue, for example.
However, we only gain Eckhart's understanding of these artistic formation and shaping processes when we recognise what Eckhart understands by creation. It is only in the context of his specific theology of creation that the educational processes in the field of art (ars) and science (scientia) become comprehensible. The contextualisation of art becomes clear in the interpretation of Col 1:15 ("He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.") through a comparison: "'Firstborn of all creatures', that is, the model for all creatures, to whom they [the creatures] are to become like, just as a painter presents a picture to his pupil after he has worked a similar one." (Sermo 49 n. 505) The firstborn is understood both as the image (imago) of the invisible God and as the model (exemplar) of all creation. The artistic moulding process - here using the example of painting - is based on the model of creation, which in turn is linked back to the Trinitarian birth of the Son from the Father.
This sets out a second horizon, which must be explored in the following: In a first step (2.1.), we will therefore work out how Eckhart thinks of the creation of the universe as an act of being and thus teleologically. Teleology consists of three interconnected elements: The thinking of participation, the act-potency thinking and the thinking of the One. Only then does it become clear what Eckhart understands by form and forming processes. In a second step (2.2.), it is worked out how Eckhart applies this teleology of creation to man and how the special nature of the created human being is also understood teleologically with the concept of image. For Eckhart, man is qua image a microcosm (world in miniature), which has the task of corresponding to the teleology of creation in his being, life and thinking. It is only through this indispensable 'diversions' via creation theology and anthropology that the framework emerges that allows the sculptor's moulding and educational processes to be understood with the help of teleology. The moulding and educational processes in art and science thus only become understandable in the context of a theology of creation and anthropology. Eckhart therefore understands education (2.3.) according to the principle of the image of God, i.e. man is faced with the paradoxical task of becoming an image of that God of whom no image can be made and who cannot be depicted.
The creation of the universe as an act of being
On the first element of teleology: In his doctrine of creation, Eckhart develops a principle of reality (esse ipsum); this one principle can be differentiated as the cause of effect, the cause of form and the final cause. Eckhart distinguishes three aspects in the way in which God as Creator relates to his creation. They can be distinguished conceptually, but they are three aspects of one act of creation: God brings the creatures into being (cause of action), he distinguishes them from one another within the ordered context of the universe (cause of form) and he maintains them in being and leads them to their goal and fulfilment (cause of purpose).
Eckhart develops a doctrine of transcendentals in the prologue to his main work. Transcendentals are general concepts that precede all things and are earlier than all things. He thus reflects the presuppositions of his thinking. For him, transcendentals include being, the good and the true. His older brother Thomas had already emphasised that the transcendentals are interchangeable. In his prologue, Eckhart focuses on the transcendental nature of being. For him, it becomes the starting point of reality and is identified with God: "Being is God". (Esse est deus) And in God, being (esse) and essence (essentia) are one, i.e. his essence is being.
This creates a difficulty: how can anything else exist outside of God, who is being in its perfection? Eckhart (and Thomas before him) solves this difficulty using the Neoplatonic concept of participation. With the concept of participation, the cause of all things and the differences in essence between things can be conceived at the same time. Creatures participate in being itself, in a limited and finite way. They are insofar as they participate in being itself. Creatures do not have an independent existence. Rather, they are "suspended between being and nothingness", as the systematic theologian Johannes Hoff puts it. This means that they only exist insofar as they participate to varying degrees in the fullness of divine being. God therefore does not create in such a way that he puts 'something' out of himself like the architect, but rather he creates ways of participation. In order to remain in being, creatures must be connected to their Creator.
The first cause (being itself) thus negates its unity of being and essence in a certain way in every effect. This can also be formulated the other way round: In every effect, the unity of being and essence of the first cause is negated in a certain way. I.e. the creatures are deficient beings. Rainer Manstetten puts it like this: "A being is a creature insofar as it lacks something. Because it is differentiated as a 'this' from a 'that', it lacks to be that. The 'not' and the 'nothing' belong to the creature." The difference between creatures therefore lies within their common relationship to the Creator, who is the principle of all being.
The second element of teleology: this participation of everything in being is - and this is the decisive point in Eckhart (as in Thomas) - conceived with the Aristotelian concepts of act and potency. Eckhart puts it this way in the prologue: "For being as such (esse ipsum) relates to everything else as its realisation (actus) and completion, indeed it is the reality of all forms. This is why Avicenna says that what every thing requires is being and the perfection of being." In order to approach being as such, Eckhart refers us to the form (= the essence), which he defines as potency. The form is 'already always' realised and participates in being itself, but in its potentiality. I.e. a blossom is an apple, in that the potency to be an apple is already realised in the blossom. The 'next' act of being then leads to a higher degree of participation. It is therefore gradual. For Eckhart, everything strives towards the greater realisation of its potential as an act. Therefore, every creature within its limits has a natural tendency to return to God, i.e. to be united with him. In the actualisation of potency, the being reaches its goal (telos): qua act of being, it participates in being itself.
The third element of teleology is the question of how the relationship between the divine effect in the creature and the effect of the creature itself is conceived. It is therefore about the relationship between first and second cause. The Thomas scholar Rudi te Velde comments: "The effect of God in nature must not be thought of in such a way that God takes over the work of nature, so to speak, but precisely in such a way that God sets nature into its own work by giving things forms and capacities and bringing them to their effect. It is precisely in this that the Creator's power of being is revealed. God works in the effect of nature by 'mediating' every categorical form and power in nature with being from within as the transcendental cause of being."
The One and the Many also do not behave as in a hierarchising, two-tier order. The One is precisely not 'above', but as a transcendental principle it is the condition of the possibility of gradual difference within an order of being: "For it is in the nature of the first and the higher, since it is 'rich by nature', to influence and touch the lower with its peculiarities, between which there is unity and undividedness." (Prologus generalis n. 10). (Prologus generalis n. 10) In each case a higher degree of unity and perfection is realised in the graded order of being: "What is divided in the lower is always one and undivided in the higher. From this it is clear that the higher is in no way divided in the lower, but remains undivided and binds and unites that which is divided in the lower." (Prologus generalis n. 10)
It is not the case that, for Eckhart, man falls into helplessness before God as before a black square. For Eckhart, thinking and speaking do not face God in a perplexed way, but always participate in him in a mysterious way. The world has a theophanic character: it reveals its Creator to varying degrees and according to the degree of participation. Johannes Hoff puts it this way: "Creation has the character of a theophanic image that participates in its divine essence in hierarchically graded intensities. A theophanic image is not identical with what it depicts. Nevertheless, unlike a painting, it contains nothing that is not contained in its archetype." Eckhart distinguishes three levels of being, through each of which the first principle is revealed in a more perfect way: Being, Living and Thinking.
In conclusion, it can be said that Eckhart thinks of creation teleologically as an act of being: creation denotes the relationship of the world in its entirety to the transcendental cause of being. Rudi te Velde once again: "Creation is not a process of becoming in which that which becomes or arises makes a movement to an end point. [...] Creation takes place without movement (motus) or change (mutatio): the whole of the creature [...] is brought into being; it is not created in time (in a particular moment), but together with time. [...] Creation does not mean change in the world; it signifies the relation of the world in the totality of its temporal succession to the transcendental cause of being, which itself stands outside of nature and time."
Man as a unity of body, spirit and soul in the birth of God
Eckhart also applies this teleological thinking to his anthropology. The starting point is the special nature of rational and spiritual creatures. Every matter (as in the case of the statue) and every spirit has different ways of being imageable, i.e. receptive to new forms. A fundamental difference in likeness is clearly stated in the interpretation of Genesis 1:26 ("Let us make man in our image and likeness"): "For now, however, we must know how rational or spiritual creatures differ from all those below them. The latter have been produced in the likeness of something that is in God and have their own ideas in God, according to which they are created [...] according to ideas that are limited to the species distinguished from one another in nature. The merit of spiritual nature is that it has God Himself as its likeness, not something that is in Him in the nature of an idea." (Gen. I n. 115) While all other creatures are created according to ideas in God and the receptivity of form is limited to one kind (species), all spiritual creatures have a resemblance to God himself, namely qua intellect (intellectus). According to the Aristotelian definition, intellect (intellectus) has the possibility of becoming everything and is not limited to certain forms. The object of understanding is the totality of being (universitas entium) and not just this or that (being).
For Eckhart, man therefore has the task of perfecting his rational soul (anima rationale) by turning it into a "spiritual world" (saeculum intelligibile). It achieves this when the form of the whole (forma totius) emerges in the rational soul. The commentary on Genesis 1:26 states: "And Avicenna [...] says: 'the perfection of the rational soul consists in the fact that it becomes a spiritual world and the form of the universe (forma totius) emerges in it', 'until the order of the entire being (dispositio esse universitatis) is completed in it and it thus becomes a spiritual world, the image of the being of the universe'. Man thus proceeds from God in such a way that he becomes 'the image of the divine being'." (Gen. I n. 115) Man thus has the task of becoming a microcosm ("world in miniature") that corresponds with the creation of the entire universe. The criterion of this correspondence is a similarity between the order of the entire being and the spiritual world of the soul.
But how does the rational soul become a spiritual and, what is more, an organised little world? A look at Eckhart's psychology is enlightening. He first formulates: "My body is more in my soul than my soul is in my body." (Pr. 10) For him (with Aristotle), the soul is the unifying form of the body with its parts: "The soul is not divided in them [the parts of the living being], but remains undivided and unites the individual parts in itself, so that they have one soul, one life, one being and one being alive." (Prologus generalis n. 10) Forming the body is a not unimportant but subordinate task of the soul. For the soul is also spirit (anima rationale), and in this it has a higher mode of existence.
The soul thus becomes a spiritual world by building itself up and at the same time organising the bodily forces. Various 'material' is necessary for the construction of the soul. All areas of the soul are nourished and must be developed. This means that the bodily and spiritual powers are exercised in their own way, i.e. according to the order. Reason is the giver of this order, which springs from the order of the outer world. The order of the entire being is realised in a harmonious unity of body, mind and soul.
We have seen how Eckhart's doctrine of being participates in a principle on the one hand, and on the other hand how multiplicity is conceived in stages and yet remains referenced to a unifying principle. The soul as a microcosm is thus conceived analogously, whereby the unity- and multiplicity-creating principle of the soul (conceived as a bodily-soul unity) is expressed with the concept of the birth of God and is tied back to the inner Trinitarian birth.
Eckhart distinguishes between different faculties of the soul: understanding, will and memory. Eckhart locates the essence of the soul, in contrast to its potencies, at the base of the soul. The human being (as a being) with body, mind and soul must therefore be in potency in relation to the being that it receives from God. That received being is in the manner of the act. This means that all potencies of the soul - including the highest reason at the ground of the soul - participate ontologically in the first principle by actualising their potentiality to various degrees. Eckhart describes the highest degree of participation in the divine essence as the birth of the Son. "Truly, in the same birth in which the Father gives birth to his only-begotten Son and gives him the root and all his divinity and all his blessedness and retains himself, in this same birth he calls us his friends. Although you hear or understand nothing of this speaking, yet there is a power in the soul [...] which is entirely detached and entirely pure in itself and closely related to the divine nature: in this power it is understood." (Pr. 27) With this act of being and unity at the foundation of the soul, man shares in being itself. The birth of God is therefore the fulfilment of the image of God. The metaphor of the birth of God, which Eckhart adopts from Origen, refers to a fundamental transformation of the soul, a transformation of itself. The soul becomes and is one when it participates in the act of creation. "God and I are one in this work; he works and I become." (Pr. 6)
Education as the gracious uncovering of a bodily-spiritual-spiritual unity
The act of being is expressed in the fact that man builds up a spiritual world in the image of the microcosm, in which the teleological order of the whole of creation is reflected and thus a bodily-spiritual-spiritual unity is revealed. For Eckhart, education is understood according to the principle of the image of God, i.e. man is faced with the paradoxical task of becoming an image, analogous to creation, of that God of whom no image can be made and who cannot be depicted.
We can now return to the image of the sculptor of the beginning, which can be applied in two ways: On the one hand, with a view to the being of man as an image and, on the other, with a view to the doing of man. Eckhart in his commentary on St John: "We therefore ask God to show in work and effect that he is 'Father of mercy', who has mercy on us, so that what we are by nature 'in the image' (ad imaginem), may come to light through grace 'according to the likeness' (Gen 1:26)." (Ioh. n. 575) It is only through the temporary appearance of grace that the nature of the image is revealed. Only through grace does the nature of the image appear and reveal its current degree of perfection. The broken creation, overwritten by sin, is purified by the artist - the Son of God - and shines in new splendour.
The germinal disposition in the nature of man must be uncovered and unfolded because it is overlaid and obscured by sin. Teleology does not mean determination, but a certainty that lies in the actualisation of a telos that has yet to be uncovered. This is the concrete task of man: to allow the germinal disposition in man's being to unfold. For Eckhart, the teacher, analogous to the artist, is someone who (like the learner) allows a form to emerge in the concrete work and an earlier form to fade away. In the human act of creation, which presupposes serenity as an attitude, a graduated participation is conceived as a physical, spiritual and mental unity in the act of creation itself. For Eckhart, educational processes are therefore always creative and mimetic. Education therefore means the (gradual) completion of the image of God in the birth of God, which is accompanied by a de-formation, so that it becomes apparent what man qua creation always already is. Education thus remains inscribed with an unavailability and a conditionality.
For Eckhart, education is therefore first and foremost a process of transformation that orientates people towards the first principle and thus a form of contemplative reflection. According to Johannes Hoff, the highest form of purposeless contemplation (life without why) is "insightful understanding" (intellectus). "Reason that seeks and reason that no longer seeks, which is rather in itself a pure light." (Pr. 37). In the contemplative exploration of the act of being, the observer comes to rest (reductio ad mysterium) and enters into a relationship of vibration. Contemporary researchers describe this phenomenon as resonance or responsiveness. This is the basis for art and science.
To educate is to be educated. The task was to understand this simple sentence with Eckhart's philosophical instruments. In Eckhart's sense, this sentence would probably have to be modified as follows: No self-education without self-education, but no self-education without God-consciousness, but also no God-consciousness without self-forgetfulness and self-education. The focus on the self is intended to exclude the reduction of education to an educational activity. However, when it comes to self-education, the self can be understood in two ways: On the one hand, it can be understood as the subject of free will and, on the other, as a bodily-spiritual-mental unity: in short, as a person. For Eckhart, the latter is the case, even if he only uses the concept of person sporadically. This removes the ground from any theories of self-justification. Only the principle of being as the first cause determines processes of formation and de-formation in which the prior principle is revealed within the order of being and cognition.
Reflecting on the assumptions of educational theories
Finally, the level of presuppositions of educational theories will come into view. With teleology, Eckhart conceptualises a certain form of the doctrine of being. In contrast to this teleology reconstructed here, we will briefly indicate which other presuppositions can be seen in Eckhart and what influence they have on educational thinking. The educationalist Volker Ladenthin sees a continuity in educational thinking between the late Middle Ages and the present day and formulates the following with regard to Eckhart: "The 'imago-dei' theory aims to explain the origin and thus the dignity of man, to give his life a goal and the agent a task. Man is (1) the work of God and should (2) become God's image; to this end he must (3) endeavour. This identifies three aspects that are still valid for educational theory today: (1) the integration of human beings into a world that can be experienced or shaped in a meaningful way, (2) the formulation of a goal of human action and (3) the indication that this goal can only be achieved through endeavour." With regard to the presuppositions, two things should be emphasised in this definition: firstly, a separation between being (1) and ought (2+3) and secondly, the concept of becoming. For becoming is understood as a - quasi natural law - process in which what becomes or arises represents a movement towards an end point or a result. Against the background of the Eckhart interpretation above, it becomes clear that education is not thought of teleologically here. Teleology is transformed here into a mechanistic causality of action, ignoring the cause of form and goal. An output-driven competence orientation also appears to be characterised by this type of causality. Such an understanding of causality then leads to a graduation ad infinitum of means-purpose relations: Means to an end, which in turn is a means to a higher end ("end of ends").
Some categorise Eckhart as a forerunner of modern theories of education and the subject. However, my reflections confirm Dietmar Mieth's assessment that the "application of our familiar concept of education - in the tradition of Humboldt - to Meister Eckhart is a retrospective projection". This shows that it is instructive - not only in the case of Eckhart - to examine the background against which the simple sentence "To educate is to educate oneself" is read.
